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Midweek Roundup: Focus on career education and more national debate on Common Core

Common Core town hall meeting

Sara Wood, a parent from St. Tammany, speaks in opposition of Common Core during a town hall meeting on the Common Core education standards on October 1, 2013. (Photo by Kathleen Flynn, Nola.com / The Times-Picayune)

In national education news this week, discussion has covered technical education, measures to help students succeed in higher education, and a discussion of the Common Core exam, PARCC. In Louisiana, state superintendent John White will be speaking later in the week about how the state plans to transition to Common Core standards, along with how they will be implementing assessments such as PARCC.

While Louisiana is gearing up to implement PARCC, Massachusetts is looking to scale it back. Education Week reports that the state, which is often seen as an education leader in reform, has said that it will not be looking to require that all school districts implement the exam that will test students on their knowledge of Common Core subjects by 2015.

Politico reports that President Barack Obama has recently unveiled a $100 million competitive grant program to go towards students interested in receiving a technical education. This comes at the same time that Louisiana is looking towards updating its career diploma and revamping career education in the state.

A Johns Hopkins study found that students really do perform better when they show up to school. The Wall Street Journal reports that schools that were able to offer incentives or mentors to students who were chronically absent for more than 20 days from school were able to make greater gains with the students if they were present.

Lastly, a familiar debate resurfaces in the country. In Louisiana, after a Board of Elementary and Secondary education meeting dredged up concerns over student data in a Gates Foundation database called InBloom, the department of education pulled student data from it. The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that a school district in New York is having the same debate over the safety of student data in InBloom this week.